Haitian Party to Withdraw From Election

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — A leading political party in Haiti announced Tuesday that it was pulling out of next month’s legislative elections, saying it was the primary victim of violence in the first round of voting in August.
It was not immediately clear whether the pullout would disrupt the second-round runoff on Oct. 25, when Haitians are also due to cast ballots for a new president. But the move was seen as another setback for stability in the country.
The Vérité party, which announced its boycott, is widely seen as the leading threat to President Michel Martelly’s Haitian Tèt Kale Party. In withdrawing, the party cited violent attacks on polling stations in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and about 50 of 1,500 voting centers throughout the country on Aug. 9.
Party leaders have been seething, however, ever since an earlier decision by Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council to strike the Vérité presidential candidate, Jacky Lumarque, from the October ballot.
Mr. Lumarque, the rector of Quisqueya University, one of the country’s top educational institutions, was barred when the electoral council determined he did not have the legal document required of public officials to show they did not misuse public money while in office.
Mr. Lumarque was a member of a presidential commission on education under President René Préval. His supporters say he did not distribute any money and thus did not need the document.
Haiti’s highest court, the Court of Auditors, agreed, but the electoral council still moved to sideline Mr. Lumarque.
He had been seen as a top contender for the presidency, alongside Jovenel Moïse of Tèt Kale. Mr. Martelly cannot run for re-election.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/09/09/world/americas/haitian-party-to-withdraw-from-election.html?_r=0